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BEIRUT — The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing initial reports, said early today that
Israeli missiles struck a military research center near the capital, Damascus.

If confirmed, it would be the second Israeli strike on targets in Syria in three days, signaling
a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war.

Israel has said it will not allow sophisticated weapons to flow from Syria to the Lebanese
Hezbollah militia, which is an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and a heavily armed foe of the
Jewish state.

Two previous Israeli airstrikes — in January and on Friday — targeted weapons shipments
apparently bound for Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials have said.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the reports of a new strike
today. In Washington, a Pentagon spokeswoman said she had no information relating to the report by
SANA.

SANA said explosions at the Jamraya research center near Damascus caused casualties. “Initial
reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles that targeted the research
center in Jamraya,” it said.

Israel’s January airstrike also struck Jamraya.

Yesterday, Israeli officials confirmed that a day earlier, Israeli aircraft had targeted a
weapons shipment in Syria that was apparently bound for Hezbollah. U.S. officials said they
believed the strike hit a warehouse.

Also yesterday, thousands of Sunni Muslims fled a Mediterranean Sea town in Syria, a day after
reports circulated that dozens of people, including children, had been killed by pro-government
gunmen in the area, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 4,000 people were fleeing from
the predominantly Sunni southern parts of the city of Banias amid fears that pro-government gunmen “
might commit a massacre.”

There were conflicting reports of the death toll in Banias on Friday. The Observatory said at
least 62 people, including 14 children, were killed in the Ras al-Nabeh neighborhood, but that the
number could rise because many people are missing. Another activist group said 102 people were
killed.

Activists had said on Friday that regime troops and gunmen from areas nearby beat, stabbed and
shot at least 50 people in the Sunni Muslim village of Bayda, near Banias.